Stan Lee’s Original GOTG Cameo Was A Bit Too Naughty For Marvel

Stan Lee’s cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty great—he gets to pretend like he’s mackin’ on a younger lady, and Rocket gets to make some solid jokes at his expense. But at Dragon Con, director James Gunn revealed that he originally had a bit more vulgar cameo in mind—one that didn’t fly with the head honchos at Marvel.

Collider reports that, first of all, Gunn couldn’t even believe Marvel let him keep the line about the Milano looking like a Jackson Pollock painting under blacklight (but seriously, how glad are you that they kept that line in? Amazing).

This also led into a story about discussions Gunn had with Marvel, going more in-depth into which decisions he won and which he lost. One of the losing battles regarded Stan Lee’soriginal cameo in the film. Originally, Gunn had planned to have Lee in one of the Collector’s exhibits. Groot would then look at the exhibit aghast, to which Lee would flick off the large tree creature.

The Collector’s museum already featured tons of awesome Marvel easter eggs (like Cosmo the dog from the GOTG comics, a Dark Elf from Thor 2, a Chitarui from The Avengers, and—of course—our little Duck friend). Throwing Stan in a cage and having him give the middle finger might have been too much good stuff in too little time, anyways.

Oh, who are we kidding. Seeing Stan flip the bird at Groot would have been the most hilarious cameo yet. Ah, well; at least Rocket got to call him a “pre-vert.”